Mercy Falls

45

Cork arrived at the Quetico Inn well in advance of six-thirty and spent a while talking to Dick Granger, the desk clerk on duty. After that, he sat down at a table with a good view of the lake and the marina. The sun had just set and, reflecting the fiery afterglow in the sky, Iron Lake was a vast expanse of burning water.

Dina walked in a couple of minutes later, dressed in a black knit top and black slacks, flashes of gold at her ears, and a chain with a small diamond at her throat. Her clothing was simple but displayed nicely every slope and curve. Cork stood up and pulled the chair out for her.

“I can’t remember the last time a man did that for me,” she said. “So you changed your mind about dinner.”

“The house felt too big and too empty.” Cork took his own seat.

“I know that feeling well.”

“I decided I needed company.”

“And it was mine you wanted.” She sounded flattered.

The cocktail waitress came.

“What’ll you have?” Cork asked.

“Cutty,” Dina said. “On the rocks.”

“Two,” Cork told the waitress.

Dina put her purse, a small black beaded thing, on the table, then folded her hands and gazed at Cork. “Out in the Boundary Waters, there were moments when the thought of good Scotch and a thick, rare steak was just about all that kept me going. I didn’t imagine I’d be sharing it with you.”

“A nice surprise, I hope.”

“Very nice.”

“It was quite a surprise for me,” Cork said. “You showing up out there like that. And certainly lucky.”

There was a candle on the table, a small votive in a glass jar. The reflection of the flame danced in Dina’s eyes.

“Lucky for both of us. If Stone had killed you, I’d…” She gave a slight shrug. “I’m just glad he didn’t.” She gazed out the window at the lake. “I’m beginning to understand what it is you love about this country. It’s beautiful and it’s dangerous. That’s an attractive combination.”

“The land is just the land. It is what it is. The danger comes from people who go into it with the wrong attitude. Good people without a proper respect for what the Boundary Waters demands. And not-so-good people whose reasons for being there are at odds with the spirit of the place. I’ve seen both end in disaster.”

The drinks came. Cork lifted his glass. “To friends,” he said.

“Friends,” she echoed, and sipped her Scotch. She glanced at him curiously, maybe a little shyly. “I’ve been wondering about your change of heart this evening. Was it only the empty house?”

For a moment he didn’t answer. “In the Boundary Waters my way of looking at things changed.”

“Changed how?”

He studied his hands. “Out there on Lamb Lake, I started to see life as a fuse getting shorter by the minute.”

“And?”

He finally looked at her directly, looked into her dancing eyes. “I liked the feel of your arms around me.”

She’d been drinking her Scotch. Her hand slowly descended as if it had taken hold of a heavy weight. “I liked how that felt, too.”

Cork said, “We could take our drinks up to your room.”

“My, that’s quite a change.”

“It was just an idea.”

“Not a bad one, if you ask me.”

Cork left plenty of money on the table for the Scotch and a good tip. They walked from the bar together, past the front desk, to the elevator, which opened the moment Cork pressed the button.

Inside, after the doors had closed, he said, “I don’t know what you’re wearing, but it’s a wonderful fragrance.”

“It’s called Black Cashmere.”

She reached out, touched his cheek, started to lean toward his lips just as the elevator stopped.

Halfway down the hall, she slipped her card into the key slot, opened the door, and stepped inside.

“Nice room,” Cork said as he followed her in.

He crossed to the window. Outside, evening had descended fully, and the fire on the lake was gone. The water had become nickel colored in the dusk. When he turned back, Dina had put her glass on the stand beside the bed. She hadn’t bothered to turn on a lamp, and in the dim light of the room she eyed him intently.

“I don’t do this as a rule,” she said.

She came toward him carefully, as if walking the dangerous edge of a high cliff. Her eyes never left his face.

When she was very near she said, “I told you that men don’t interest me much. But when I find one that does, I’ll let him do anything.” Her smell, partly the Black Cashmere but also something else, better than perfume, profoundly human and female, enveloped him. “Anything.”

He put his glass on the windowsill, reached out and took her. She pressed herself to him, breasts and stomach and hips and thighs, and her arms went around him like soft rope binding them together. She lifted her face hungrily toward his lips. He bent, felt her hot, Scotch-scented breath break against his face.

And the phone rang.

“Ignore it,” she said in a hoarse whisper, and arched more tightly against him.

“It might be important.”

“Nothing’s more important right now than this.”

Cork slowly drew away. “Answer it. I’ll still be here.”

She relaxed, let out an exasperated sigh, and released her hold. At the nightstand, she grabbed the phone from its cradle. “What?” she said, with great aggravation. She listened. “Thank you. I’ll take care of it later.” She listened a bit more, rolled her eyes. “All right, all right. I’ll be down in a minute.” She hung up. “There’s some sort of problem with my credit card. Apparently it can’t wait.”

“Go ahead,” Cork said. “I’ll make myself comfortable.”

She returned to him, cupped his face with her hands, and kissed him. “This won’t take long, I promise.”

As soon as she was out the door, Cork hit the closet, found her suitcase, and opened it. Empty. He checked the shelf, the floor. He went to the bureau, yanked the drawers open one by one, riffled through her clothing. Kneeling, he looked under the bed, then stood up and headed to the bathroom.

When Dina came back a few minutes later, he was standing at the window again. The sky outside was almost dark and Iron Lake was the color of an ash pit.

“False alarm,” she said. “You Minnesotans are very nice, but what you don’t know about doing business would fill an encyclopedia.” She sauntered toward him. “Where were we?”

She was still a few feet distant when Cork brought from behind his back the black ski mask. She stopped abruptly and considered first the mask, then Cork.

“I found it in the bottom of your cosmetics case,” he said.

“In this country, you can never be sure about the weather,” she replied in a leaden voice.

“It’s the one you wore the night you planted the explosives in my Bronco.”

“Were you looking for that, or just on a fishing expedition?”

“Why?” Cork spit the word. “Why bring my family into it?”

“Take your clothes off.”

“What?”

“Take your clothes off. I want to see if you’re wearing a wire.”

He didn’t move.

“Do you want to talk or not?”

He undressed. Sport coat, shoes, socks, shirt, pants. He laid everything on a chair. When he was down to his boxers, Dina said, “That’ll do.”

“Now tell me why,” he said.

“I don’t know why you think I can answer that question, but maybe I can help your thinking a little, provide a dispassionate perspective. For example, it might be productive to think about the explosive itself. If I recall, it was made with a blasting cap that was dead, yes?”

“You know it was.”

“So it couldn’t possibly have detonated. Now, it might be that the person who put it in your Bronco was simply stupid. On the other hand, it might be that it was never intended to hurt anyone.”

“Then why was it put there?”

Dina picked up her glass from the nightstand and finished the Scotch with a clink of ice against the empty glass.

“All right,” Cork said, addressing her silence, “let me do a little speculation. Let’s say the device wasn’t intended to kill anyone. What did it accomplish? It caused me to lose a lot of sleep. It certainly confused the situation. Were either of those the point? Or was it to separate me from my family, send them scurrying to Chicago? I’m thinking this because the night before the bomb was planted, Jacoby was at my house. He learned all about my family. Jenny and Northwestern, Rose and Mal in Evanston. He even knew Jenny was planning on using my Bronco the next morning. I’m thinking that a man like Jacoby believes he can manipulate anything and anyone to get what he wants. So he has someone-someone, let’s say, like you-plant a bomb-or a nonbomb-to scare me into sending my family his way so that he can be with them, comfort them when word of my demise reaches them. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I enjoy seeing a fanciful mind at work. Go on.”

“That’s what the hit was about, I think. To get me out of the way because another man coveted what I have. It wasn’t Lydell Cramer who wanted me dead. It was Ben Jacoby. And he used his brother Eddie to broker the deal. Now, your part in all this is still a little uncertain. What were you supposed to do? In the event that Stone couldn’t complete the hit, were you instructed to kill him, make sure he didn’t talk?”

“I was hired to make sure the investigation into Eddie’s death wasn’t mishandled. Period. When I came here, I didn’t know anything about Stone.”

“Then why this?” He shook the ski mask at her.

“You’ve overlooked something obvious. It could be that the point of the bomb-or nonbomb, as you appropriately call it-was to ensure that your family was out of harm’s way.”

“Is that what Jacoby told you? Or did you even care, so long as he paid you enough? Out of harm’s way, sure. And my wife right into his waiting arms.”

“Not every outcome of an action can be predicted. It seems to me that whether Jo stepped into someone’s waiting arms was entirely up to her, wasn’t it? And as for killing Stone, when I pulled that trigger, I pulled it for only one reason.”

In the little illumination that still fell through the window, he saw anger in her face, and perhaps hurt. He almost believed her.

“Tell me I’m wrong about Ben Jacoby,” he said.

“It’s an interesting speculation. Do you have any substantiating evidence?”

“He’s a thorough man, but I’m sure he’s slipped up somewhere. I’ll find out where.”

He went to the chair and began to dress.

Dina watched him. “What are you going to do?”

“Let Jo know who Ben Jacoby is. Then I’m going to figure how to nail him.”

“Be careful, Cork.”

He pulled on his shoes, tied them, and stood up. “You’re worried about me?”

“Your family’s safe. You need to think about yourself.”

It took a moment for him to weigh her words and her tone. Then he understood. “He offered you the contract on me, didn’t he?”

“If I wanted you dead, I’d have let Stone finish the job on Lamb Lake.”

He still held the ski mask. He threw it to Dina.

“I should have it checked for explosive residue, and I should have your luggage and your car checked, too. If I were a betting man, I’d bet we’d come up with something. But you saved my life. Consider my debt paid.”

As soon as he returned home, Cork called Evanston. Rose answered. Her “Hello?” sounded anxious, and when she knew who it was, her voice took a serious nosedive to a bleak octave.

“What is it?” Cork asked.

“I was hoping you were Jo.”

“Why?”

“Well,” Rose said hesitantly, “she seems to be missing.”